Equal Pay? More Like Special Payoffs to Trial Lawyers

Democrats and left-wing activists have lately been pushing the idea of “equal pay” for women in an attempt to find some issue that would take attention away from the horrible economic record of the Obama administration as the campaign for the White House heats up. But who really benefits from this push? Trial lawyers, of course.

This week the Democrats tried to float the “Paycheck Fairness Act,” but it failed in the Senate in a 52-47 vote.

The “Paycheck Fairness Act” would have established unlimited punitive damage claims in class action lawsuits filed against employers in instances of alleged gender discrimination. The chief beneficiaries of the bill, experts told the Washington Free Beacon, would not have been female workers but the lawyers and law firms that would litigate the lucrative lawsuits made possible by its passage.

Naturally trial lawyers have given more than $230 million to federal political candidates with the largest amount going to Democrats — $132 million to Senate democrats alone.

As Stiles notes, Republicans opposed this bill because there is already a glut of frivolous lawsuits in this area of law and the result of passage of the act would only make that worse.

“The only winners under this legislation would be trial lawyers,” said Sen. Dean Heller (R., Nev.) before the vote on Tuesday morning. “Legitimate cases that could be addressed under the current system would be lost in a flood of lawsuits.”

The work in Congress is about through for the year, of course, so the idea that this bill could have become law this year is laughable. In fact, Republicans charge that the introduction of this failed act was a purely political move in the first place, that Democrats knew it would never pass.

Warner Todd Huston

Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago-based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com, BigJournalsim.com and all Breitbart News' other sites, RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, and many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs across the country to discuss his opinion editorials and current events as well as appearing on TV networks such as CNN, Fox News, Fox Business Network, and various Chicago-based news programs.
He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the book "Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture" which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of PubliusForum.com.
Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston and follow him on Twitter, on Google Plus , and Facebook.